Cloud cybersecurity, resilience, infrastructure

ENISA, Europe’s network and information security agency, just released a report looking at cloud computing from the perspective of critical infrastructure protection.

ENISA asserts that 80% of large organisations will be using cloud solutions within two years. The approach that ENISA takes is nicely balanced, pointing out that cloud adoption is both good and bad in terms of critical infrastructure protection. From an organisational perspective, the message is similar

Like any information security endeavour, adoption of cloud boils down to a series of risk decisions. There is of course also a question of organisational and possibly national resilience in the case of critical infrastructure to adapt if any threats are realised.

However, it is possible to use the cloud securely for many applications. It requires resources devoted to intelligent system design. This means that the business case for cloud adoption is not one necessarily about saving money. One company that uses the Amazon service, but did not get affected in 2011 was Netflix. Netflix has a very clever piece of software called Chaosmonkey which tests its environment during working hours with the intention that systems are fixed before they break. Netflix released the software as open source in July 2012. http://techblog.netflix.com/2012/07/chaos-monkey-released-into-wild.html

STRENGTHS

Cloud providers can afford people, processes and equipment which is state of the art

Cloud providers able to offer very good uptime and good backup.

Cloud provides good mitigation against natural disasters

Elasticity – Cloud offerings are able to increase and decrease load dynamically, this allows them to mitigate against DDOS attacks

Cloud providers located in different jurisdictions add complexity to the compliance and governance of organisations.

OPPORTUNITIES

Better collaboration with other organisations, integration of supply chain across disparate organisations and locations.

Organisations that utilise cloud well can become more resilient eg Netflix

Code optimisation

THREATS

Cloud providers concentrate datasets so their ‘attractiveness’ as a target increases (aggregation)

An outage in one cloud provider can have consequences for multiple organisations. Additional issues may become apparent if those organisations are all providers of the same critical infrastructure.
A legal dispute related to data owned by one organisation which is located in the cloud might affect others

The threat from human actors can be seen to be the combination of intent and capability. Both organised crime and nation states have the capability to attack cloud providers. Their intent is obviously higher if they assess that they can access several prize organisations through a single attack.

I’m struck by the thought that the emergence of cloud should mean that risks to the critical infrastructure from natural disasters and mistakes should decrease. However, on the other hand, cloud providers are such attractive targets, that the risks from human (active) threats are likely to be higher.

Importantly, the report makes a number of useful suggestions for organisations that are moving towards the use of cloud solutions in terms of risk assessment, security measures and recovery and reporting of incidents.

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Alex Weblng

BSc, BA (Hons), Gdip Comms, GdipEd, ZOP
Alex has 20 years of experience in the Australian Government working in the fields of national security, information and cyber-security, counter-terrorism, , nuclear science, chemical and biological security, protective security and critical infrastructure protection, identity security, biometrics, and resilience.
Alex was the foundation Director of the Australian Government computer emergency response team, GovCERT.au (later CERT Australia). He developed and project managed a world first program to train CERTs in developing APEC countries.
Alex set up the Trusted Information Sharing Network Resilience Community of Interest in 2008 and produced the first Australian Government Executive Guide to Resilience.
Head of Protective Security Policy in 2010, Alex was responsible for launching the revised Protective Security Policy Framework and the single information classification system for the Australian Government.
Alex has both significant experience and tertiary qualifications in the CBRN (Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear) area. He was head of the Chemical Security Branch of the Attorney-General’s Department; responsible for nuclear policy during the construction of the Australian OPAL reactor; and represented the Attorney-General’s Department in the Security Sensitive Biological Agents development process, bringing to it a pragmatic, risk driven approach.
As Director of Identity and Biometric Security Policy, Alex was responsible for developing the successful proposal to expand the Australian Document Verification Service into the private sector in 2012.
Alex has been a member of the Australasian Council of Security Professionals since 2011 and a registered security professional in the area of Security Enterprise Management with the Security Professionals Register of Australasia.
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